"Years ago, Americans grabbed toast and coffee for breakfast. Public-relations pioneer Edward Bernays changed that. We watched a documentary on the guy in a Journalism Ethics class this morning. I'm still kind of getting over it. He lived until 103 (died in '95), and is generally regarded as the father of PR.
The man hypnotized America into reinventing bacon. He is literally a bacontrepeneur.
Among his lesser feats, Bernays also made "green" fashionable in the 20s, made kids like soap in the 50s, and fueled the overthrow of the Guatemalan government in 1954 just to sell fruit.
I like the selling of the colour "green" the most. The man was hired by Lucky Strike cigarettes because they had a dilemma. Their conversation went something like this, I'm told:
Lucky Strike: Not enough women are buying our cigarettes... How do we remedy this?
Ed Bernays: Well, your packaging is green and red. No woman wears green; it's never been fashionable before. Change your cartons to another colour, and they'll have no problem carrying them around.
LS: Are you kidding? We spent hours designing this carton! It's our brand! No, no... just change the entire American fashion industry to match our cartons. It'd be easier.
EB: Oh. Okay.
AND HE FUCKING DID! Like... what the fuck?
I'm most amazed at how I've never heard of the man before. They say the best PR people are the invisible ones... obviously, otherwise you can see the puppet-master, the strings, if you will, and it ruins the show. But considering he manipulated American culture for the last 80 years, I'm surprised his name isn't more common.
And he was Freud's nephew. Which explains a bit.
This is the kind of stuff I'm glad I go to school for. I'd like to read a book of his, or his essay, "The Engineering of Consent". It seems kind of twisted--all about how the American people are vulnerable and intellectually lacking, made to buy things they don't need--but he was so damn successful it's scary.
Most importantly, I'd ask, Why haven't we learned by now? The Internet only complicates issues--for all it clarifies, it also muddles twice as much. Maybe we are really that gullible, and forever will be. Maybe that's why I'm typing on a MacBook now, and why we continue to shop in malls, smoke cigarettes and drink Coke.
"The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest."
- Edward Bernays
I guess that's why he started a war on Guatemala, and we're still in university.
PS Bernice, I lost my bacon-post-virginity. Happy now?
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In 1958 an economist named John Galbraith wrote a book about the way our we invent things to want--it's called "The Affluent Society." I've never read it, but I've had it summarized the same way a half-dozen times: the book claims that since the true needs of the majority of people are met, the private sector uses advertising to create artificial demand for products to manufacture. The argument runs that although this process makes people richer in general, it also neglects the public sector and consumes resources without generating net utility--since society both creates and satisfies these desires.
I had never really appreciated it before. Well done, Eddie.
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